Dome staff caught up in foiled £200m diamond heist speak for first time

Tuesday 10 November 2009 10:38 BST

Battering ram: armed police surround the digger used by the raiders in 2000

Millennium Dome staff caught up in the foiled £200 million diamond heist have told for the first time how they came face to face with an armed gang.

Only a handful of senior managers were told of the complex police operation that thwarted the attempt to steal some of the world's rarest diamonds from the De Beers Millennium Exhibition, including the 203-carat Millennium Star, centrepiece of the display.

Six men were jailed for a total of 80 years for the attempted robbery, in which a modified JCB digger was used to smash a way into the Dome.

Now, nine years on, staff have relived the day. The only ones initially told about the planned raid were Dome chief executive P-Y Gerbeau, executive chairman David James, deputy director support services Brian Roberts, and head of security Malcolm Roberts - a former Metropolitan police inspector.

Mr Roberts said Met detectives asked permission to carry out covert surveillance of the gang from a secret hiding position within the Dome. The 66-year-old, who spent 25 years in RAF counter-intelligence, told the Standard: "Every Wednesday and Thursday I and my security manager would let the police in at 4am and lead them to a secret hidey-hole, and waited.

"When it happened I was in the control room. We saw the JCB up the road crashing through one of the gates. My duty manager was within two seconds of being knocked down by the digger." The gang had gas masks, smoke grenades, sledgehammers, body armour and sophisticated radios and scanners to intercept police messages.

General staff at the Dome had not been told of the planned attack. Christine Starling, 57, visitor services manager at the time, said: "No one knew what was going on. Moments before, I was told to clear everyone from my area - I thought a VIP was coming.

"The next thing I saw was a JCB coming through the side of the building heading straight for us. Then around me these cleaners started pulling guns out of plastic bags. I thought it was a stunt, or some film thing. It was so surreal."

Laura Kennedy, 32, said she came face to face with the attackers: "There was a man slumped over in the digger about 15 metres away. Then three men jumped out and one threw a smoke bomb that rolled towards me. It was like the movies." At the subsequent trial it was claimed the robbery would have been the "biggest ever" if it had succeeded. Aldo Ciarrocchi, 32, Raymond Betson, 40, William Cockram, 49, and 57-year-old Robert Adams were found guilty of conspiracy to rob in February 2002. They were given between 15 and 18 years for what judge Michael Coombe called "a wicked and highly professional crime".